Lee Skingley recalls the
sense of panic she felt the night her first daughter, Rachel, was born.
"I didn't know what to do with a newborn. I thought singing might calm
her, but I could only think of one song: 'Silent Night.' So I sang it
over and over to her," she says.
Laurel Trainor would call "Silent Night" a
perfect choice. An associate professor of psychology at McMaster
University in Hamilton, Ontario, Trainor's research on lullabies shows
that parents can sing almost any song - "a folk song, a pop song, an
aria from a musical" - and turn it into a lullaby.
What sets a lullaby apart from other songs,
according to Trainor, is... "Lullabies tend to be simple in structure,
have a restricted pitch range and a lot of repetition. But much of what
makes a lullaby isn't simply the pitch structure, but the style in
which it is sung," she says.
But what about babies? Do they like lullabies
and find them relaxing? Trainor's research says yes. " Trainor adds:
"And babies react to lullabies by focusing their attention inward,
which often calms them."
She contrasts lullabies to what she calls play
songs - lively, bouncy songs parents sing when they want to play with
their babies. Infants respond to these songs by looking around the room
and becoming more active.
Listening to lullabies may even be good for
your baby's developing brain. Trainor is currently researching whether
infants who are exposed to music are more likely to have enhanced
reading skills when they reach school age. "We're finding that early
musical abilities - being able to hear whether two melodies are exactly
the same or differ in one note, or whether two rhythms are the same or
different - predicts early reading skills," she notes. |
